Shut chur pie hole an’ getta work!

As we near the season of shopping savagery, I repeat a story I did the day before Thanksgiving in 2011. Black Friday was then a mere shadow of what it is now. There has been some push back of late, with retailers like REI saying, “Go outside. Enjoy the day with friends and family. All the stuff will be here on Saturday.” REI will be one of my shopping destinations, by the way.

The link to the Strib editorial about the ungrateful Target employee Anthony is broken, although other links from the same time period are not. Perhaps even the editorial board is embarrassed about this one. Maybe they went to see A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie.

o O o

The boys and girls who write the editorials for the Strib are really on a roll. First, they wail about the “200 to 300 ineffective” teachers in Minneapolis, entirely without foundation, and now they scold a part-time employee (probably part-time so Target doesn’t have to pay for health care or other fringe benefits for him) of Target’s in Omaha because he isn’t crazy about going to work late in the evening on Thanksgiving Day; he even started an online petition.

Why, this is beyond the pale for the plutocrats’ bootlickers on the editorial board, who just tell this fellow — Anthony Hardwick — to “Buck up!” “Stop whining!” The ingrate.

This troublemaker has just the kind of attitude that led to the forty hour work week, overtime pay, and paid holidays. And who can forget all the trouble the little malcontents like Anthony have caused with workplace safety rules! Damn shame, too. These are the job creators we’re talking about; the fact they have to worry about cutting off arms and legs — and, I swear to god, fingers and toes, too! — is what’s wrong with this country.

Little Anthony also wants to deprive all the shoppers who love the frenzy of Black Friday: the pushing and shoving, the picks and the blocks, the tugging and the tearing, and all the rest that make the day such a charmer. And for what? Just so that Anthony the backslider can drive 200 miles into the Nebraska countryside to have Thanksgiving dinner with his aged mom and dad, without eating and running back to Omaha. What a pissant.

Okay, I don’t really know where Anthony grew up. But there are a lot of people who travel on the Thanksgiving Day weekend. Home. To family. It’s why a lot of businesses are closed on the day after. Not to contribute to the pool of febrile shoppers, but to give employees a chance to have a meaningful time with family.

By opening at the crack of Black Friday, Target and the others are going to deny that to a lot of employees.

And my Thanksgiving wish for the Strib editorial board: May you all dine on dried out turkey and sour wine!

Update: And may your relatives be disagreeable boors, too.

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